Musical emotions in the absence of music: A cross-cultural investigation of emotion communication in music by extra-musical cues

Abstract

Research in music and emotion has long acknowledged the importance of extra-musical cues, yet has been unable to measure their effect on emotion communication in music. The aim of this research was to understand how extra-musical cues affect emotion responses to music in two distinguishable cultures. Australian and Cuban participants (N = 276) were instructed to name an emotion in response to written lyric excerpts from eight distinct music genres, using genre labels as cues. Lyrics were presented primed with genre labels (original priming and a false, lured genre label) or unprimed. For some genres, emotion responses to the same lyrics changed based on the primed genre label. We explain these results as emotion expectations induced by extra-musical cues. This suggests that prior knowledge elicited by lyrics and music genre labels are able to affect the musical emotion responses that music can communicate, independent of the emotion contribution made by psychoacoustic features. For example, the results show a lyric excerpt that is believed to belong to the Heavy Metal genre triggers high valence/high arousal emotions compared to the same excerpt primed as Japanese Gagaku, without the need of playing any music. The present study provides novel empirical evidence of extra-musical effects on emotion and music, and supports this interpretation from a multi-genre, cross-cultural perspective. Further findings were noted in relation to fandom that also supported the emotion expectation account. Participants with high levels of fandom for a genre reported a wider range of emotions in response to the lyrics labelled as being a song from that same specific genre, compared to lower levels of fandom. Both within and across culture differences were observed, and the importance of a culture effect discussed.

Mind-Wandering during Personal Music Listening in Everyday Life: Music-Evoked Emotions Predict Thought Valence

“…Despite the current study initially aimed for a much larger sample size, the data collection was interrupted by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, a cross-cultural approach would be valuable to shed light on the impact of culture in shaping thoughts, images and emotions during music listening [ 3 , 84 ], as the current study only included Western participants. To advance knowledge on this topic, it would also be important to analyse “app-data”.…”

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story? Hamilton As A Case Study For Musical Mnemonics

“…It is not just the structures and conventions of music that elicit certain responses from audiences; the context of the musical experience is key to this process as well. According to the Cue-Redundancy Model, emotion is conveyed in music due to a variety of psychoacoustic cues which are negotiated through both universal and cultural lenses (Susino & Schubert, 2018). The more familiar one is with a certain piece, genre, or style of music, the more likely it is that one will use such a piece as a cultural reference point for future listening experiences (Susino & Schubert, 2018).…”

“…According to the Cue-Redundancy Model, emotion is conveyed in music due to a variety of psychoacoustic cues which are negotiated through both universal and cultural lenses (Susino & Schubert, 2018). The more familiar one is with a certain piece, genre, or style of music, the more likely it is that one will use such a piece as a cultural reference point for future listening experiences (Susino & Schubert, 2018). For example, the North American style of rap has very different thematic associations than for example Eastern European Folk music and thus each genre has different associations for different audiences.…”

“…For example, the North American style of rap has very different thematic associations than for example Eastern European Folk music and thus each genre has different associations for different audiences. Therefore, due to the vast differences in music found around the world, responses to cues can vary dramatically (Susino & Schubert, 2018). The two genres most relevant for an analysis of Hamilton are hip-hop and rap.…”

“…Some examples of universal cues include tempo and timbre. As previously mentioned, an increased tempo is typically viewed as more upbeat and happier (Susino & Schubert, 2018). Extra-musical or culture-specific cues, on the other hand, could refer to things such as genre labelling (Susino & Schubert, 2018).…”